Help Café Comunión In Puerto Rico Reopen After Hurricane María

Last week we profiled Café Comunión, a coffee shop in San Juan, Puerto Rico who, though affected by Hurricane María, continued to stay open, serving brewed coffee outside their damaged storefront. Destroyed doors and windows and water-damaged walls and floors will all need to be repaired or replaced before the Santurce coffee shop can open fully. To aid these efforts, Café Comunión co-owner and 2014-15 Puerto Rico Latte Art Champion Abner Roldán has set up a GoFundMe page to help acquire the money needed to make the necessary repairs.

Café Comunión before the hurricane.

After the hurricane.

But the damages extend beyond what was done to the building. With Puerto Rico’s coffee farms also ravaged by the storm, many of the island’s shops aren’t sure exactly how they will get the coffee they need. As Roldán tells Sprudge:

Since we will not have Puerto Rican coffee available in a few weeks, we will need to import green and roasted coffee from the United States. The main problem about importing coffee is that importing green coffee is illegal in Puerto Rico, and to import roasted coffee you have to pay $2.50 in taxes for each pound of coffee. Both circumstances are held by old laws that were created to protect Puerto Rican coffee and increase its sales. Now that Puerto Rican coffee will need at least three years for a new harvest, I believe both laws need to be modified.

Through their GoFundMe, Café Comunión is looking to raise $5,000 for repairs and as of writing this, they have raised just over 20 percent of that goal. And if you needed any additional incentive, a donation of $50 or more will earn you a handsome Café Comunión logoed shirt.

To donate, visit Café Comunión’s GoFundMe page here.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

*all images via Café Comunión

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